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Topic: Fermentation not finished (Read 5168 times)

Based on your recipe, I think you're going to be fine. Just needs a lot of time to finish up. It's not realistic to expect an FG of 1.010, but you should be able to achieve 1.020-1.025 which won't be too bad. Give it time, and warm it up, and it will be fine. If it seems to stall, throw in some yeast energizer and watch it take off again.

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Dave

The world will become a much more pleasant place to live when each and every one of us realizes that we are all idiots.

Nope no spanking, just constructive help . As mentioned, it looks like underpitching and lack of enough time on the yeast were definitely setbacks to attenuation, as was lack of sufficient aeration. I use ~ 2 minutes of oxygen through a wand for beers this big. Mr Malty is a good yeast calculator to get you in the ballpark of pitching the right amount of yeast. As far as yeast autolysis, I've left beers this big on the yeast for a month or more, with great results. You wouldn't want to leave it for a really extended time on the cake, but a month or 2 at fermentation temps won't hurt and will help the yeast finish and clean up after itself. Hang in there - we've all been there ! A beer this big is a different animal, with additional things to consider in order to get a well attenuated fermentation.

I never stop learning, either. +1 to using yeast energizer. Did you add any yeast nutrient and/or energizer during the boil? I always add some yeast nutrient to the wort during boil, both at home and in the brewery.

Autolysis is more of a concern in very large, tall commercial fermenters where there is significant pressure on the yeast, not so much in carboys or buckets.I leave my beer in the primary until the fermentation is finished, then rack to a keg or rack to dry hop or rack to fruit.

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Jeff Gladish, Tampa (989.3, 175.1 Apparent Rennarian)Homebrewing since 1990AHA member since 1991, now a lifetime member BJCP judge since 1995

ps: if no one is using a secondary, where do you age beer. you do not want to leave on the yeast cake forever? wont dead yeast cells affect the product after time?

If I'm doing a normal beer (e.g. not sour or something meant for aging), I usually do a 3-4 week primary. If I am doing say, a Belgian Golden Strong, I primary it for a month - by then it has dropped clear on its own - take a gravity reading/taste test then secondary for 2-3 months. I can rush this process along for smaller beers, but it's all done by feel. There is no set timetable for the fermentation in my brewery, it is all done by sight (gravity readings), taste and smell.

As others have said, that's a solid recipe and it just needs time to finish. It will go slowly but it should keep fermenting. Most of my beers are bigger beers (1.07+) and they sit on the yeast for three weeks at least. No harm will come from that.

FWIW, I've never seen fermentation take off again after adding yeast energizer but I could be doing it wrong. I've tried just about everything to get big beers to finish faster (warmer temps, rouse the yeast, rack to a fresh yeast cake, add yeast energizer) and what I've found is that while each of those may help you really do need to be patient.

And don't be humbled, I'll bet it tastes awesome when it's done. The tripel I tapped last weekend is one of the best I've made in ages and it took forever to finish.

The most important thing you can take away from thus is: racking isn't really necessary in most cases but racking before beer is finished can totally screw up everything. I'm not totally convicted the beer will finish out completely unless you really did remove all the yeast and put in 2ndary ... And then I have to wonder why in the world you would do that?

I very rarely secondary beer. Even beers I age tend to get left in primary. When dry hopping I cold crash and move to the bottling bucket where I add the hops in a bag. Yeast will strip out some of the hop compounds and I don't have a good way to rack out of a fermentor after dry hopping that won't result in rousing the yeast and defeating the purpose of the cold crash.

I've had beer sit for months and months in primary without autolysis destroying the beer.

For sure don't sweat it and don't be so hard on yourself. This beer will need a little TLC to coax it to attenuate as much as possible, but it will likely be fine with enough time. Good luck and keep up the brewing - and reading here; there are a lot of very knowledgeable brewers here.

UPDATE!! I made two starters( one for each carboy) with Danstar Nottingham yeast slightly more the 1/2 gal each with an OG of 1.050 . i let them spin on the stir plate for 2 days, then pitched directly into the carboys. i had a noticeable increase in the fermentation in about 2 hrs. after 2 days they continue to have active bubbling of the airlock. more updates to follow